I smiled, nervously. ‘It’s a funny old situation really…’
‘Cut to the punchline.’
‘Leo and I got together on the cruise,’ I blurted out as fast as I could to get it over and done with. ‘I’m so sorry, Heidi, I know it’s a huge no-no and I feel awful about it. He must have seen something when he stayed at the hotel with me in Lisbon.’
She stood completely frozen, so I carried on babbling.
‘Although the timing doesn’t feel right as I thought we’d only briefly talked about it by then. I can’t work out what he would have seen. But maybe I’m misremembering. It was a hectic two weeks; I can barely remember what happened when. Shall I just get him on the phone and we can ask him ourselves?’
Heidi nodded, seemingly much calmer despite my revelation, and I silently dialled his mobile while she drummed her nails on the table. We sat and listened to the phone ring out until it clicked into voicemail, with Leo’scharming voice and affable invitation to leave a message unintentionally rubbing salt in the wound. There was nothing we could do today, we’d have to wait.
‘They’re probably out celebrating,’ I muttered, feeling sick at the thought.
‘Those fuckers!’ she screamed, ripping Leo’s business card into tiny bits.
‘I’m so sorry, Heidi, this is all my fault.’
‘You’ve got nothing to apologise for. You’re not the sneaky rat who stole someone else’s idea and palmed it off as your own. Leo has played you like a fiddle and first thing Monday morning we’re going to have it out with him. Let’s meet outside their office at seven.’
I nodded. ‘Good idea. This conversation needs to happen face to face. I want to watch them try and lie about it.’
‘They can ignore our calls, but they can’t ignore us setting up camp in their reception.’
‘I’ll bring our original pitch boards and anything else I can find,’ I said, thinking of all the flipcharts we’d scribbled on in the brainstorming sessions, then threw away. Not that we needed to prove anything to them. They bloody well knew. It was Brooke we had to convince.
‘I need a drink,’ Heidi sighed, putting her head in her hands. The rest of the office had cleared off for the weekend, and it was just us left.
‘I’ve got a bottle of Zinfandel on my desk,’ I said, feeling weary. ‘For emergencies.’
Heidi wrinkled her nose. ‘Cheap pink plonk? It’s not that desperate, is it? No, let’s go next door.’
There was a wine bar on the corner of the road and it was impossible to walk past without popping in for a quickglass. There was always someone from the team sat in the window, beckoning me inside. Not that I was ever hard to convince – not normally anyway. I loved a few wines and a Nando’s on the way home.
The Farringdon pavements were teeming with red-faced city boys, swigging pints and shouting at each other through clouds of smoke. The air was thick and gloopy, and I was hot, bothered andfucked off. It was officially the weekend and I wanted to be out with my real friends, not sat in a sweatbox listening to Heidi bitch and moan.
Heidi pushed her way to the bar, and the beardy barman with the tattoo sleeves served her immediately. There were occasional perks to the amount of money we all spent in there. She passed an ice-cold glass of wine through the crowd, and we found a spot of wall near the loos to lean against.
‘Cheers!’ she said, sarcastically. ‘Here’s to working our bollocks off and getting no reward.’
‘They don’t deserve us,’ I said, taking a sip and closing my eyes. It tasted a lot better than a mug of warm rosé. Ordinarily I found the hubbub in the bar buzzy and exciting, but tonight it was noisy and annoying – what I really needed was some peace and quiet. I couldn’t wait to get home, kick off my shoes and sink into a bubble bath. My wine was delicious though, and I could make my excuses after one glass and head off. Heidi was drinking twice as fast as me anyway, so we’d be done in half an hour if I stayed focused on necking it.
‘I need to talk to you about a couple of things, Kat,’ Heidi said, suddenly serious, and my stomach clenched. ‘This is hardly the ideal setting, but having reflected on your confession it needs to be said so it’ll have to do.’
Was she going to give me notice right now?In the pub?I took another gulp of wine to prepare for the inevitable.
‘First of all, I haven’t been entirely honest with you about my relationship with Zach, and I think it’s time to come clean.’
‘Your relationship?’
Her ears turned pink as she nodded. She swallowed awkwardly. Almost as if she was…squirming. I’d never seen this side of Heidi before. ‘We… er… used to work together, as you know,’ she started, slowly. ‘Years ago, though – yonks and yonks. It must be… well, ten years now.’ She lifted her glasses and narrowed her eyes, studying her wine glass intently.
‘Right…?’
‘It might even be fifteen,’ she said, rubbing at an imaginary lipstick mark. She laughed in shock. ‘Yes. Blimey. Time flies.’
‘Righttt…?’Jesus.
‘Right,’ she said, snapping back to reality. ‘And we were kind of together at one point. Living together.’
